The Reformed Douchebag

John Cheese: How To Recognize That You've Become "That Guy"

I come from an often overlooked and largely unrepresented faction of males that I like to call the Reformed Douchebags. You see them all the time in real life — a guy you knew in high school who was once known for loudly voicing his multiple ascents to the summit of Ass Mountain in between breaths of a world-record keg-stand. Fifteen years later, you'll run into him at the grocery store and be floored by his conservative attire and the fatherly way he tells his kids, "No, you don't need any more candy. Now get in the car before I set you on fire."

There is a reason these guys aren't represented in mainstream media: We don't go to the zoo to see monkeys eat and clean their fur. We want to see them pressing their balls against the glass and flinging sh*t at each other in a psychotic monkey rage.

Tim Tebow, Tucker Max - or nothing

We want to see the extremes, with Tim Tebow on one end and Tucker Max on the other. You don't have to look very far for proof. I don't think it's possible to go a full day without hearing at least one Tebow joke. And Tucker can back me up with sheer numbers. His last two books sold two million copies.

Personalities like these drive massive media traffic because they attract opposing sides of the male spectrum. The guys who are still in the throes of their boner-wielding 20s throw their fists in the air with a resounding, "Hell, yeah! Preach on, brother!" The older, more reserved men find those guys to be their personal moral garbage dump. It's a harmless way for them to scoff through their monocles and say, "Look at that idiot. He'll be dead before his 50th birthday." Shows like Jersey Shore are based entirely around this concept, and it works.

Giving up the game

We all go through it at some point, whether it's tapping the brakes on a race-car sex life or realizing that drinking more booze than water isn't as cute and wacky when you're a 40-year-old man with a career and kids of your own. Teen hormones are nature's nitrous oxide, but if you don't eventually switch to unleaded, you're going to blow the whole goddamn engine.

"When" to switch fuel isn't as much about age as it is about where you want to be in life in any given time frame. Yes, it's possible to make a living while existing in full party mode, but it's far from probable. Do you want to be a doctor? Then it's probably best not to spend your study time doing Jell-O shots out of a stripper's cleavage. Do you want to start a family? It might be a good idea to make it a goal to be the father who is actually around and sober for his children.

That's not to say you can't still have fun and let loose. Far from it. I don't know any parents who give up their New Year's party or at least find the occasional babysitter so they can just get away. But if you think you can have kids and still spend every other night closing down a bar, you may need to pull up Google and enter the word "priorities.” You can do this now. We'll wait.

Are you happy with your job and have no plans of having kids? That's absolutely fine. There are millions of guys out there just like you. But, at some point, the ones who don't want to end up as Jim Morrison, minus the fame and money (and enormous beard), have to make a conscious decision to slow the hell down. That's a hard decision to make and even harder to pull off.

But let's take that one step further and say that you're invincible — a true paragon of health and liver regeneration. The next time you go out, take a good look around the bar or club or vampire orgy (I'm not current on what types of parties are "in"). I promise you that before the end of the night, you will see at least one guy who, with just a little analysis, will freak you right the hell out.

The man no man wants to become

He's the one sitting by himself, sipping a mixed drink. He's wearing enough cologne that you can smell it outside the bar. If you subtract 15 years from the calendar, his clothes would be in style. The bartender knows his name and his drink without him saying a word. He's leaning against the bar like he hasn't a care in the world, gray hair bobbing slightly to music that you know for a fact he doesn't like. He's casually scanning the crowd, like a drunken Terminator, searching for any woman who's just the right level of buzzed. Drunk enough that her inhibitions are thinned, but not enough to pass out or vomit. He's hunting, and his eyes are on the girls your age. And it is creepy as hell.

That's you in 20 years if you fail to find your "off" switch. Or at the very least, your "Holy sh*t, this is no longer my element" switch. We all go through it. Guys in their 20s will probably read this and laugh, thinking, "Not me. I'm happy doing exactly what I'm doing. I'm enjoying life to its fullest." Again, that's perfectly fine. Just know that there are millions of Reformed Douchebags out there just like me who are cleaning our monocles as we speak.